title: Postmortem computed tomography imaging in the investigation of nontraumatic death in infants and children.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To determine the accuracy of postmortem computed tomography (PMCT) for the assessment of causes in nontraumatic deaths in children.
  
  
  METHODS
  We enrolled cases of nontraumatic deaths of infants and children who underwent PMCT at a single center. The presumed cause of death determined by PMCT was prospectively compared with the clinical and pathological diagnoses of deaths.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Thirty-eight cases were enrolled for analysis. Among them, seven cases also underwent conventional medical autopsy. PMCT revealed an identifiable cause of death in accordance with the clinical diagnosis of death in 16 cases of the 38 cases (the concordance rate was 42%) and in accordance with the autopsy cause of death in four of the seven autopsy cases (the concordance rate was 57%). Among eight cases with unknown cause of death by clinical diagnosis, four cases (50%) were identified with cardiac tamponade as a cause of death (one case) and intracranial hemorrhage suggesting abuse (3 cases).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  PMCT seems to be a promising technique that might serve as a substitute for conventional medical autopsy and give us the complementary information to clinical diagnoses particularly in cases of child abuse. Larger multicenter trials are worthwhile to validate the general feasibility of PMCT.
authors.affiliation: Department of Pediatrics, Kansai Medical University, 2-5-1 Shin-machi, Hirakata-shi, Osaka 573 1010, Japan.
authors.forename: Yukihiro
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Noda
authors.forename: Ken
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Yoshimura
authors.forename: Shoji
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Tsuji
authors.forename: Atsushi
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Ohashi
authors.forename: Hirohide
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Kawasaki
authors.forename: Kazunari
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Kaneko
authors.forename: Shigeki
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Ikeda
authors.forename: Hiroaki
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Kurokawa
authors.forename: Noboru
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Tanigawa
mesh_terms: D001344:Autopsy; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D003643:Death; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D007231:Infant, Newborn; D008297:Male; D014057:Tomography, X-Ray Computed / Q000379:methods*